ZooLeipzig

Short description

Leipzig Zoo has a long tradition and many historic buildings. It used to be famous for its lion breeding (´lion factory´, bred more than 2400 lions) and now keeps the international tiger studbook.

It boasts many rare species, for example okapis, nerpas and musk deer. A weekly television docu-soap made the zoo famous all over Germany and the keepers became TV stars.

The aquarium, built in 1910, today offers landscaped exhibits and an impressive ring tank for sharks. The terrarium has just been extended.

One of the characteristic brick buildings is the ´bear castle´, place of many successful breedings, but nowadays completely out-of-date. Till the nineties, the zoo urgently needed redevelopment and hardly met the standards of modern animal keeping.

Now more than 125 years old, Leipzig Zoo presents itself as visionary zoo of the future. It will be completely rebuilt and divided into regions: South America, Asia, Africa and, to top it all, the giant tropical hall ´Gondwanaland´.

The biggest project so far was ´Pongoland´, the worldâs largest ape enclosure, which also serves the Max-Planck-Institutâs research. All four great ape species live here in big groups.

The Kiwara savannah is populated with giraffes, antelopes and zebras, next to them live a flamingo flock and hyenas, which can all be watched from the logde restaurant. The new elephant bull house has already been rewarded with an elephant baby.

In 2006, the rebuilt elephant house ´Ganesha Mandir´ opened with an underwater view of the elephant bath and four outdoor exhibits.

The old carnivore house now accomodates a conservation exhibition. Leipzig Zoo is also a partner of the Stiftung Artenschutz.

* Please note: Most information given about the zoos is derived from our zoo database in German language by parsing keywords or auto-translation. While this works very well with most data, in some cases it might result in odd translation or missing additional details. You might want to have a look at the German version for control and additional information.
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